that his invention was basic, granted him all that he asked.

By this time, however, the life of the patent had nearly run its
course. Whitney applied to Congress for a renewal, but, in spite
of all his arguments and a favorable committee report, the
opposition from the cotton States proved too strong, and his
application was denied. Whitney now had other interests. He was a
great manufacturer of firearms, at New Haven, and as such we
shall meet him again in a later chapter.



CHAPTER III. STEAM IN CAPTIVITY

For the beginnings of the enslavement of steam, that mighty giant
whose work has changed the world we live in, we must return to
the times of Benjamin Franklin. James Watt, the accredited father
of the modern steam engine, was a contemporary of Franklin, and
his engine was twenty-one years old when Franklin died. The
discovery that steam could be harnessed and made to work is not,
of course, credited to James Watt. The precise origin of that
discovery is unknown. The ancient Greeks had steam engines of a
sort, and steam engines of another sort were pumping water out of
mines in England when James Watt was born. James Watt, however,
invented and applied the first effective means by which steam
came to serve mankind. And so the modern steam engine begins with
him.

The story is old, of how this Scottish boy, James Watt, sat on
the hearth in his mother's cottage, intently watching the steam